


La Vie en Rose

by roseandheather



Category: Code Black (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 09:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,295
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6189205
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roseandheather/pseuds/roseandheather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four times Ed and Leanne's anniversary celebration got interrupted or overshadowed, and one time it definitely, <i>definitely</i> didn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	La Vie en Rose

**One**

Leanne spends their first anniversary up to her elbows in blood, guts, and broken bones.

It's a sign of how much things have changed since she began seeing Ed Harbert that this wasn't how she'd _planned_ to spend it. But with two residents down - Christa out with the flu, and Mario with a nasty case of strep throat - it's all hands on deck, and she's shed the white coat of the ER director for the first time in weeks.

Blood splashed against all that white looks rather terrifying, after all.

Ed comes down to see if she's ready to head home, takes one look at the state of Center Stage and the ER in general, and sneaks her a coffee a few minutes later, meeting her in the utility corridor where she's hidden to catch her breath. It's hot and creamy, just the way she likes it, and she kisses him in mingled thanks and apology.

"Go on, get out of here," she urges, letting herself lean against his strong shoulder for just a minute as she gulps - okay, more like inhales - the sacred caffeine. "I'm sorry it has to end this way, but..."

He stops her with a soft kiss, gently cupping her cheek and smoothing back her messy hair. "You'll be home as soon as you can get away?" She nods wearily, and he touches his forehead to hers briefly. "That's all I'm asking," he reminds her gently, and kisses her one more time before he turns to go, walking backwards to keep his eyes on her until he turns the corner and she's completely out of his sight.

Feeling like she's caught eight solid hours of sleep in the previous five minutes, Leanne plunges back into the fray.

Puddles of blood and shattered limbs don't explain the smitten grin on her face, but Ed Harbert does.

 

**Two**

Ed spends most of their second anniversary yelling at idiots on the phone.

What particular brand of idiocy he's dealing with, Leanne doesn't know - and frankly, she doesn't _want_ to know. He smiles wearily and takes the coffee from her hand - straight black, no sugar or cream - with gratitude in his eyes, and she doesn't even mind the coffee breath as she steals a quick kiss from his lips.

The shouting from the other end of the line grows louder, and Ed rolls his eyes in her direction, throwing up his free hand as if to say, "You see what I have to put up with?"

She manages to stifle her giggles, but not entirely, because he actually sticks his tongue out at her - _are we five?_ she wonders briefly, but grins like an idiot anyway - before turning his attention back to the phone.

Knowing there's nothing she can do except get out of his way and let him squash today's bureaucratic nightmare, she takes his free hand and kisses the knuckles, holding it briefly to her cheek. He rubs his thumb over her fingers - acknowledgement and endearment in one -  and then she slips out the door, knowing that the sooner he finishes, the sooner he'll be home with her.

It's not what she'd imagined for the day, but he's still hers and she's still his, and after so much loneliness, that's more than enough.

 

**Three**

Their third anniversary just so happens to be the same day Neal and Christa get married.

Leanne isn't complaining. The couple who'll actually have it as a _wedding_ anniversary get dibs on the date, and in any case, there are worse ways to spend a day than swishing around in a gown that makes everybody's jaws drop.

Christa is a beautiful bride, dressed in a warm golden champagne color that makes the most of her blonde hair and big eyes. (Malaya had suggested icy blue, to which Christa had retorted, "Do I look like Elsa to you?" and Leanne had had to stop herself from blurting out, "Well, yes, actually.") But Ed's eyes only follow her, no matter how beautiful Christa looks, and when he winks at her in the middle of the ceremony, a hot thrill shoots through her.

Much later, she comes out to the balcony to join him. He catches sight of her and his eyes light up, and she feels a spill of warmth all the way down to her toes.

"Do I actually get to spend five minutes in a row with you now?" he asks her whimsically, reaching for her hand and drawing her down onto the bench beside him.

Exhausted but happy, she rests her head on his shoulder. "My matron of honor duties appear to be wrapped up for the night," she agrees. "And frankly, I don't think Christa is even aware there are other people here any more."

"Just as it should be," he notes, and wraps an arm around her shoulders. "If I haven't told you yet today, you look beautiful."

"Mmm," she murmurs happily. "I could stand to hear it again."

"All right." He noses her temple, then brushes a soft kiss to the corner of her eye. "You look amazing tonight. I know all eyes were supposed to be on Christa, but I couldn't take mine off of you."

"I think Christa will get over it," she murmurs, the excitement of the day catching up to her at last.

They sit together in the quiet for awhile, enjoying the spill of light, music, and happy chatter from the reception and - most of all - just being together after a day filled with ceremony and wedding duties.

"Have you ever thought about doing this again?"

His words break the silence, and she jerks up - enough to look at his face, if not to shake his arm from her shoulders. "Excuse me?"

If he's nervous, he isn't showing it. "Have you ever thought about getting married again? And more to the point, _would_ you?"

Suddenly, she can't breathe. "Edward, are you trying to ask me something specific?"

"No." His arms tighten around her. "I'm asking what you'd think about it, if I decided I wanted to ask you something specific."

She studies him for a long moment; the steadiness in his eyes, the surety of his hands. There's no urgency about him, just curiosity, and she drags in a deep breath and tries to _think._

Marry Ed Harbert? Gently, she touches the idea with her mind, and finds...

Not now. Not yet. But someday?

 _Yes,_ says something inside her. _Someday._

"I'd say," she says slowly, "that the answer would be, 'not quite yet.' If you asked me today."

"And if that changes," he says intently, his thumb stroking her shoulder, "will you tell me?"

Unbidden, tears spring to her eyes. "Believe me," she says hoarsely, "you will be the first to know."

 

**Four**

It's their fourth anniversary and they're huddled in the corner of a hole-in-the-wall sushi place that has a weather-battered shingle sign and the best uramaki she's ever tasted. They're both sweaty and a little bit sunburnt, and how they can manage to eat after hot dogs and peanuts at the ballpark is something she will never understand, but she doesn't care. Not here. Not now. Not when she has Ed Harbert sitting across from her, gray eyes laughing with a smile he just can't shake, looking at her like she's the only real thing in the world.

"I can't believe I managed to fall in love with a Giants fan," she says mournfully, tugging on the sleeve of his replica Willie Mays jersey. "You realize this makes me a traitor to Dodgerkind, right?"

"Oh, we're a regular Romeo and Juliet, we are," he agrees, pinching a California roll with his chopsticks and using his free hand to tweak the bill of her Dodgers cap. She retaliates by stealing a spicy tuna roll from his plate, and they're arguing the merits of the DH rule (he's for, she's against, and neither of them know who's having more fun) when all hell breaks loose in the kitchen.

~*~

"We have someone with third-degree burns on the face and neck and another person with a bone-deep laceration to the right hand," Leanne barks into her cell phone. "Yes, that's two ambulances! No, I'm a _doctor,_ I work in the emergency room at Angels Memorial - Leanne Rorish! Yes, _that_ Leanne Rorish - _thank_ you!"

By the time the ambulances pull up, sirens squealing, Ed's Giants jersey is being used as a makeshift compression bandage and they're both splattered with blood. The paramedics roll in, one after the other, and start loading up. The parking lot is crowded, sirens are wailing, and all Ed can see is Leanne's eyes.

"You take that one, I'll take this one," she says briskly, and starts scrambling down the steps after their burn victim.

"Leanne!"

She stops, turns around, and her eyes lock on his. "Problem?"

_I haven't done this in years._

_I'm still an M.D., but I'm not_ **_you._**

_You barely trust your residents. Why would you trust me?  
_

_What if all the gossip is right?_

_What if I let you down?_

"Are you sure about this?"

"You're a doctor, aren't you?" The words are whimsical but her eyes are _not,_ and if there's a shred of doubt anywhere about her, he can't see it.

It's like she's flipped a switch inside him. The world clicks back into place, and suddenly, everything seems right again.

"I'm riding with you," he barks to the other pair of medics. "Dr. Ed Harbert, nice to meet you. Let's roll!"

He can't see the gleam of satisfaction in Leanne's eyes, and it doesn't matter. All he needs is the confidence in his own voice.

~*~

"It's supposed to be your day off!" says Christa crossly to Leanne as she jumps out of the ambulance beside their gurney.

" _You're_ supposed to be in bed with morning sickness," Leanne retorts, slanting a glance at Christa's still-flat belly.

Christa rolls her eyes and starts rattling off questions, but just for a moment, their gazes lock in perfect understanding. Christa smiles, and Leanne beams back, and then they don't have time for anything else.

"...and morphine for the pain," Ed's voice says faintly behind her, and she catches a glimpse of him in only a white t-shirt, hands slick with blood, barking questions and drug names like he's never been away. Jesse gives him an approving look, Hannah seems to be faintly stunned, and even Isabel looks impressed.

If she had the time, Leanne would stop to drink in the sight. Would let herself find a convenient wall and swoon a little at the sight of Ed Harbert back in his element, out of the boardroom and into the crush of a Code Black.

...okay, she'd be swooning more than a little.

But she doesn't. So she settles for fucking him into the mattress when they finally get home.

He doesn't seem to mind.

 

**Five**

They spend their fifth anniversary in Paris.

Curled up on a bench in the Tuileries, her head on Ed's shoulder with the late spring breeze kissing her face, Angels Memorial seems very, _very_ far away.

And she doesn't regret it.

~*~

_Two Months Earlier_

"Oh my god, _give me that._ " Dignity forgotten, Leanne makes grabby motions for the three-month-old infant in her mother's arms, coffee abandoned on the counter.

Beaming, Christa hands over her daughter, and Leanne snuggles her close, revelling in the soft baby scent she hasn't smelled in far too long. "Say hi to Auntie Leanne," Christa instructs, and Allie makes an excited squeaking noise and grabs for Leanne's glasses.

"Ah, ah - none of that, young lady." Gently folding her hand around the baby's, Leanne offers a finger instead, which Allie takes with a bright baby grin and an excited giggle. "Christa, she's _gorgeous!_ _"_

And she is. Asra Lianne Hudson - "Allie" to all and sundry for clarity's sake - has her mother's eyes and her father's hair, and a smile she could have inherited from either of her parents - or perhaps both.

Christa has dark circles under her eyes and skin paler than Leanne has ever seen it, and her movements are weary and ginger; labor hadn't been easy on her, and Leanne knows all too well the lack of sleep that accompanies a new baby. But somehow she's radiant with joy nonetheless, and even as she sinks onto the sofa, she doesn't take her eyes off her baby.

"She better be," says Christa, with a laugh that's half groan. "God, I'd forgotten how _hard_ this is! But I wouldn't change it."

Leanne jerks her head in the direction of the coffeepot, and Christa makes an excited yelping noise. She comes back with a cup of coffee that's half creamer - she's still breastfeeding, after all - but she does seem to perk up as she drinks the coffee down.

Leanne studies her with a critical eye (while still snuggling the baby, of course). "How are you? I can't imagine this isn't even worse than residency."

"Oh, it is," Christa confirms. "And I wouldn't have it any other way. But there's a part of me that wishes my maternity leave was already over. I _miss_ this place!"

"Well, we'll take you any way we can get you," says Leanne. "And believe me, _we_ miss _you,_ too. Even only having you back for one shift a week will be better than not having you at all."

"It's not going to be easy," says Christa with a sigh. "Though it should get better when this little one starts preschool. I'm not sure _how_ we'll do it, but we'll manage somehow. I never thought..." She chokes up and ducks her head, and Leanne reaches out to grab her hand.

"I know," she says softly. "Second chances don't come around that often, do they?"

Sniffling, Christa shakes her head, wordless.

"And when they do," Leanne continues, "you have to grab them with both hands. As I've learned all too well." Leanne gives Christa's fingers a gentle squeeze, then lets go, giving the other woman time to regain her composure. "But you three do what you have to do. You'll always have a place here at Angels, understood? As I said, we'll take you however we can get you."

"Thank you," whispers Christa hoarsely, and for a moment they just look at each other, understanding.

 _You and I, we are in the same club. And this stuff matters to us. It **matters**_.

"Anyway!" Christa breaks the silence after a moment. "What have you all been up to? I feel so out of the loop! Give me all the gossip."

"Ah," says Leanne, wavering and then giving in. "Ed asked me to go to Paris with him."

Christa's jaw drops. "He _never._ When? What did you say??"

Helplessly, Leanne smiles. "I said yes."

~*~

_The Day Before Paris_

"I can't believe he convinced you to spend a whole two weeks away from here, Daddy. The man deserves a _medal._ "

"And you deserve a smack, Mama," says Leanne tartly, her voice belied by how tightly she hugs him.

"We won't burn the place down while you're gone. _Leave,_ " says Jesse, and shoves her out the door.

She goes without further protest.

Leanne hates LAX. Hates it with a fiery, burning passion usually reserved for such devil hellholes as O'Hare and JFK. It's crowded, noisy, and _slow,_ and the sight of all those families crowded together in the airport lounges breaks her heart with the memories.

But this time she's hand-in-hand (or hand-in-elbow, more accurately) with Ed Harbert, and for once, she doesn't want to scream.

They're flying coach but they have a two-seat row all to themselves, just a few rows from the back. She'd had plans to take advantage of the in-flight entertainment, maybe do something unnatural like actually watch a movie released within the last ten years, but in the event she finds herself draping her legs over Ed's lap and pillowing her head on his shoulder. He's bundled in worn jeans and an Angels sweatshirt, and his arms are soft and warm around her.

"Comfy?" he asks, the twinkle of amusement in both his eyes and his voice.

"Mmm," she says, and makes something disturbingly like a purr as he strokes her hair.

They untangle themselves long enough to swallow a not-entirely-terrible airplane dinner courtesy of Air France, and then she re-settles herself in Ed's arms with a contented sigh. He rests his cheek on her hair, the warm puff of his breath ghosting over her ear, and she drops off to sleep in the space between one heartbeat and the next. She spends the rest of the flight caught in the hum of the jet engine and Ed's gentle breathing, and she doesn't dream.

~*~

_Jardins des Tuileries, Paris_

"Our anniversary in Paris," says Ed musingly, turning his head just enough to kiss her temple. "Did you ever think we'd make it this far?"

"Ed!" she says, trying to sound scandalized.

"What?" he asks, his eyes warm on hers. "I'm not a fool, Leanne. I know I can be stuffy at the best of times, and I know bureaucracy is your personal idea of hell. If you'd asked me five years and one week ago whether I thought I even had a chance with you, I'd have said no. But here you are, and every successive day with you is a pleasant surprise I don't expect. To be here, like this, with you - it's not even a dream come true. It's something I wouldn't have _dared_ to dream about, not even a year ago. But here we are, and I can only count my blessings and treasure every minute of it."

Leanne freezes.

For a long moment, she thinks about where she was five years ago. Aching and lonely, beginning to recover from the tragedy that shattered her life, but only just. Someone who spent more time looking backward than looking forward, and whose future was less interesting than the past she had lost.

But Ed Harbert has changed all that. He's a _good_ man, she's learned, one who cares for Angels - and its people, and its patients - as fiercely as she does. One who will play the game he needs to play, who makes compromises he doesn't always like, because he never stops looking forward - never stops seeing all the angles, in a way she sometimes can't.

A good man who looks at her like she's something worth adoring, who is her strength on bad days and her refuge and sanctuary on terrifying ones. Someone who knows her life and can sympathize with it, but is distanced enough from her daily routine of blood and tears to provide both compassion and much-needed perspective. Someone who has been her refuge and her sanctuary, her harshest critic and her dearest friend, her courage and her safety.

Someone she trusts, absolutely and without question, in Center Stage, in the boardroom, and in her own private world.

 _Someone,_ she thinks, sitting here in the blooming spring air in the most romantic city in the world, _I could see myself waking up with thirty years from now, and always be thrilled to see his face next to mine on the pillow._

She realizes, then, that her hands are shaking.

_Every successive day with you is a pleasant surprise I don't expect._

If he feels like _that_...

And if she feels, more and more every day, that he is the one person she wants to run to when it all goes wrong, instead of locking down inside her own anguish...

 _I don't want to imagine a life without him,_ she thinks, just a little bit stunned. _I don't think I can._

She tries to think of it - and for the first time feels not just grief, but terror.

"Ed," she says, and her voice trembles alarmingly. "You asked me, awhile ago, to tell you if the answer changed."

"Yes," he says, and sounds like he might be close to tears.

"Ask me again."

"Leanne, I love you. Will you marry me?"

"Yes," she chokes out, and when he leans forward and kisses her she feels like she can breathe again, _finally,_ for the first time in nearly a decade. Something bone-deep snaps into place, and she lets out a shaken sob against his mouth.

When he pulls back at last to look at her there's a thousand things in his eyes - hope, and joy, and the dream of a future they'd both thought had come and gone again. Old grief, and the understanding of two people who know it all too well.

And maybe, remarkably, something like peace.

"Oh, _Lea,_ " he says, and when she buries her face in his shoulder and weeps, she can feel him crying, too.

"I love you," she rasps against his shoulder, and he hugs her tighter with a wet chuckle.

"I love you, too," he murmurs against her hair. "God, if I'd known all I had to do was bring you to Paris to get you to say yes, I'd have done it years ago!"

"Cheeky," she gurgles, shaking with laughter and tears and rapidly fading adrenaline. "You _know_ it wasn't that."

"I do," he says, sobering suddenly. "Oh, Lea, I do."

"You're - " _my silver lining,_ she thinks, _my flower blooming from the ashes, my light at the end of the tunnel, my second chance at happiness, my hope when I thought I had none..._ " - Ed, I..."

"I know," he says, and touches his forehead to hers, careless of the crowds and the chatter. "I _know,_ Lea."

There aren't words for what he is to her. Aren't words for how she loves him, old grief twined with new joy, and happiness born from ashes. Aren't words for how this feels - to find joy a part of her still believes she doesn't deserve, and someone whose steady, kind patience has drawn her to him as nothing else could have.

He is her steadfast anchor, and there aren't words for that in any language, so she kisses him instead, with the Parisian air swirling bright and beautiful in the springtime. The world smells like blooming flowers and second chances, and she thinks there isn't any more fitting place, or any more fitting time, to tumble off a cliff she's been terrified to even look at and suddenly learn she can fly.

That night they go up the Tour Eiffel, just to say they did. Ed buys them champagne from the tiny, absurdly expensive bar at the top and they toast to hope and possibilities, before getting down to the ground again just to escape the crowds. Afterward they wander into a pedestrian-only district of sidewalk cafes that are still open, and have hot coffee and pastries sticky with powdered sugar, just looking up at the Tower gleaming with lights, and the Arc de Triomphe beyond that, and she feels like she's walking on air.

Over the next few days Ed shows her his old stomping grounds at the Sorbonne, and they walk the Latin Quarter and the crowded streets of Montmartre. The museums they pretty much avoid - she has no interest in art, and he went to them all as an undergrad and considers that to be quite enough for one lifetime - but they do get a lunch from a tiny boulangerie and eat in the courtyard of the Louvre, just to enjoy the atmosphere and the sunshine. They even hit a few of the Loire castles - Chenonceau, Fontainebleau, Versailles - and spend one long, lazy afternoon in the Versailles gardens, just drowsing in the sunshine as the lake glitters in front of them.

On their last night they walk along the Seine, holding hands and looking out over the skyline. He's barely stopped touching her since that day in the Tuileries, as if he's afraid she'll prove to be a mirage or a dream, and part of her wants to grumble but the rest of her doesn't want to let go of him either, so she doesn't. They huddle together on the bench, licking pastry flakes from their fingers and watching the play of lights on the water, and when she draws him to her and kisses him, fierce and wild, he kisses back like they'll never get another chance.

But they will, he promises later that night, when they're curled together in bed. _We'll come here again, Lea,_ he says, _of course we will, this city is ours now as much as it is mine._

 _Ours,_ she thinks, and the glow that suffuses her has nothing to do with the temperature of the room. _I could get used to that._

When they fly out of de Gaulle she looks out the window at the city and its winding river with the wistfulness of someone leaving a place where their life changed forever. But when Ed looks over her shoulder, one arm around her and the other squeezing her hand, she doesn't think she'll miss Paris _too_ much.

After all, the best part of it is coming home with her.

"We'll always have Paris," Ed whispers in her ear. She elbows him in the ribs for being an insufferable cheeseball, but that doesn't stop her from settling back into his arms with a contented sigh, a smile sappier than a Vermont maple tree wreathing her face.

"Forget Paris," she murmurs (but she doesn't mean it, not really). "We'll always have _this._ "

"Yes," he says, " _yes_ -"

And then his mouth is on hers, and neither of them have the presence of mind to miss anything at all.

"To the next five years," Ed whispers when they break apart, and Leanne shakes her head, smiling so hard her face aches.

"No," she says, and presses a kiss to his palm in helpless sentimentality. "To the rest of our lives."

**Author's Note:**

> There really is a bar at the very top of the Eiffel Tower that sells champagne, among other things, and it really is absurdly expensive, but it seemed like something Ed Harbert would enjoy doing just so he can say he did it, especially with Leanne. There's a whiff of something vaguely French about him, so I slipped in hints here that he studied in Paris for awhile as an undergrad. He's probably mostly fluent in the language if so, and I might show that off in a fic sometime, but it didn't seem to fit in here, so consider that a bit of authorial headcanon on my part.
> 
> Oh, and just so nobody accuses me of partisanship: I have absolutely no vested interest in the Dodgers/Giants rivalry. My loyalties lie entirely with the Red Sox Nation and the Chicago Cubs, and entirely against the vile, Devil-spawn Yankees. I did, however, think that baseball would be Leanne's sport if she so had one (aided by a glorious picture of Marcia and Raza at Dodger Stadium, the former wearing a Dodgers jersey), and that it might be a good time for all if Ed supported her team's longtime rivals.


End file.
